America Has Failed in Every Way But One | gadflyonthewallblog

America Has Failed in Every Way But One | gadflyonthewallblog

America Has Failed in Every Way But One

This year has been a disaster.

We are living through a global pandemic yet have inadequate health screenings, medical equipment or a viable vaccine.

We are witness to public lynchings of black people at the hands of law enforcement yet our legal system continues to be slow to act if at all.

Our schools and hospitals are starved for resources yet police have riot gear, tear gas and army surplus tanks to patrol the streets.

Climate change causes unprecedented storms, droughts, wildfires, hurricanes and other extreme weather yet our policymakers refuse to take any action to change it or even acknowledge it’s happening.

We’re experiencing record unemployment and a stalled economy yet the super rich loot and pillage recovery efforts to record profits.

White supremacists are terrorizing our communities yet we ignore it until someone is killed and refuse to see any  CONTINUE READING: America Has Failed in Every Way But One | gadflyonthewallblog

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Philanthropy Backs Testing

CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Philanthropy Backs Testing

FL: Philanthropy Backs Testing

Has there ever been a time when it was more obvious that the Big Standardized Test is waste of time and money? Do you hear anybody out on the street over the last week declaring, "What we need is some standardized testing to show systemic racism, because otherwise, how will we know?" But education amateurs still believe in testing's magic power, and nowhere is the Cult of Testing more firmly entrenched than in Florida.

So here comes Bill Hoffman in the Tampa Bay Times to explain "Why we still need standardized testing."

This guy.

Who is this guy? Hoffman is the head honcho of the Florida Philanthropic Network, and, of course, has no actual background in education. He graduated from the University of South Florida in 1976 with a bachelors in Marine Biology, then got himself a Master in the same. He rose through the ranks at Associated Marine Institutes, Inc, a "$65M international non-profit education and juvenile justice organization." In 2002 he landed in the Hillsborough Education Foundation, another one of those business-and-philanthropy self-appointed school oversight groups. He was there until 2011, and if Hillsborough rings a bell, that may because it was the site of one of the Gates Foundation experiments in teacher evaluation (from which Gates ultimately pulled out, leaving his tab unpaid and the district with issues). Hillsborough entered that Gates adventure in 2009.

Hoffman moved on to the National School Foundation Association, "the industry's primary thought leader, convener, and advocate." By "industry" they apparently mean the "education foundation" industry. NSFA started a Education Foundation Leader Certification Program at National University, and Hoffman teaches a couple of courses part time for that. Also in 2011 he set up Bill Hoffman and CONTINUE READING: CURMUDGUCATION: FL: Philanthropy Backs Testing

‘Teaching for Black Lives’ -- a handbook for educators to fight racism - The Washington Post

‘Teaching for Black Lives’ -- a handbook for educators to fight racism - The Washington Post

‘Teaching for Black Lives’ — a handbook to fight America’s ferocious racism in (virtual or face-to-face) classrooms

On July 10, 2018, I wrote about a book that had just been published titled “Teaching for Black Lives,” a collection of writings that helps educators humanize blacks in curriculum, teaching and policy and connect lessons to young people’s lives. At that time, President Trump was busy normalizing racism with repeated comments in which he disparaged people of color. Now, with the country in turmoil after the death of yet another unarmed black man at the hands of police, let’s take a new look at the book.

This is how the introduction starts, as relevant today as ever:

Black students’ minds and bodies are under attack. Fifteen-year-old Black student Coby Burren was in geography class at Pearland High School near Houston in the fall of 2015. As he read the assigned page of his textbook, he noticed something that deeply disturbed him: A map of the United States with a caption that said the Atlantic slave trade brought “millions of workers from Africa to the southern United States to work on agricultural plantations.” Coby took a picture of his textbook and texted it to his mother, adding, “We was real hard workers wasn’t we,” along with a sarcastic emoji. Not only had the McGraw-Hill textbook re­placed the word “slave” with “workers,” they also placed the chapter on the enslavement of Africans in the chapter of the book titled “Patterns of Immigration” — as if Africans came to the United States looking for a better life. …From the North to the South, corporate curriculum lies to our students, conceals pain and injustice, masks racism, and demeans our Black students. But it’s not only the curriculum that is traumatizing students.

Last week, a 42-year-old father of two named George Floyd died in Minneapolis, handcuffed, with his arms behind his back, on the ground, with an officer’s knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes, almost one-third of that time he was non-responsive, according to court documents. That officer has been charged with third-degree murder but three other officers with him — two of whom were also holding down Floyd — have not been charged.

Protests against police brutality and endemic racism have erupted in cities around the country, with some saboteurs breaking the peace of the demonstrations with violence. Police and the National Guard have flooded streets in a number of urban areas.

“Teaching for Black Lives,” edited by Dyan Watson, Jesse Hagopian and Wayne Au, is designed to show how educators “can and should make their classrooms and schools sites of resistance to white supremacy and anti-blackness, as well as sites for knowing the hope and beauty in blackness.” But the truth is that the book can educate anybody who picks it up and reads it.

Here, with permission, is the introduction to “Teaching for Black Lives” and two chapters from the book.

Watson, social studies coordinator for the secondary program in teacher education at Lewis & Clark College, is an editor at Rethinking Schools, a national publisher of educational materials. She is also a member of the organization’s executive board. She began her professional career as a GED instructor for young mothers in Portland and then taught social studies at Sunset High School in Beaverton, Ore., where she developed and taught the first African-American history course and helped create and implement a school-within-a-school program for freshmen and sophomores. Watson is also CONTINUE READING: ‘Teaching for Black Lives’ -- a handbook for educators to fight racism - The Washington Post

A quick lesson on what MLK and Rosa Parks said about protests - The Washington Post - https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2020/06/01/quick-lesson-what-mlk-rosa-parks-really-said-about-protests/

Russ on Reading: Instruction for the Vulnerable Reader: Word Work

Russ on Reading: Instruction for the Vulnerable Reader: Word Work

Instruction for the Vulnerable Reader: Word Work

Last week's post addressed one aspect of the question Why Johnny Can't Read, the issue of quality of instruction. Quality instruction, I argue, is balanced instruction. Balanced instruction includes word work, read aloud, shared reading and writing, guided reading, and independent reading and writing.

Today, I would like to focus on word work. Here are some posts from over the years that address the decoding and sight words. Other posts will deal with other aspects of word work, namely, spelling and vocabulary. Underpinning any word work is student oral language, so I began this listing with my post on that issue. Once students begin to develop some proficiency in word work, fluency instruction can help them "read the words so they CONTINUE READING: Russ on Reading: Instruction for the Vulnerable Reader: Word Work

NANCY BAILEY: Reimagine Schools after Covid-19? Bring Children Together!

Reimagine Schools after Covid-19? Bring Children Together!

Reimagine Schools after Covid-19? Bring Children Together!

In my mind, I see a line. And over that line, I see green fields and lovely flowers and beautiful white women with their arms stretched out to me over that line, but I can’t seem to get there no-how. I can’t seem to get over that line. ~ Harriet Tubman

Public schools can bring us together. When children learn to care for each other with tolerance and understanding, they will grow to respect one other as adults. Honor the memory of George Floyd and black citizens who have unjustly died, by reconsidering our past efforts to integrate public schools. One place to start is by reading Gerald Grant’s book, Hope and Despair in the American City: Why There are No Bad Schools in Raleigh.  

Learn how, once upon a time, Raleigh brought children together to learn, thereby reducing the gap between the rich and poor (92).

Vouchers and charters divide. Private schools and charter schools segregate. Remote learning, or learning at home or anyplace anytime, does little to bring students together.

This country needs strong public schools that unite students and families.

Who’s considering how to address the growing racial chasm that, along with the virus, CONTINUE READING: Reimagine Schools after Covid-19? Bring Children Together!

Minnesota governor Tim Walz draws on his career as a public school teacher to prepare for reckoning after George Floyd's murder — PS connect

Minnesota governor Tim Walz draws on his career as a public school teacher to prepare for reckoning after George Floyd's murder — PS connect

Minnesota governor Tim Walz draws on his career as a public school teacher to prepare for reckoning after George Floyd's murder

Before I was in elected office, I was, I’m a public school teacher by trade. I spent 20 years doing that.

One of the things I was most proud of--and I think as Minnesotans, many of you across the world maybe getting your first look at who we are and that’s unfortunate but it’s real, and it will take that look--but one of the things of public schools I’m most proud of--our public schools consistently rank at or near the top. We’re a state that extends from the Canadian border. We have lakes so clear and pristine, they’re 40 foot deep and you can see the bottom and drink from them. We have iron ore mining that the steel was used to build this country. We’re a top agriculture producer. We’re home to a higher concentration of Fortune 500 companies than almost anywhere else and we’re home to the Mayo Clinic. We Innovate. We’re passionate people. And again, get back to that statistic, as governor, I like to talk about this in the things that we say, we don’t just rank at the top on educational attainment, we rank at the top on personal incomes, on home ownership, on life expectancies, things that make this—and one that came out a while back, we ranked second in a survey of the 50 states, second in happiness behind Hawaii.

“We rank at the top on educational attainment, we rank at the top on personal incomes, on home ownership, on life expectancies—All those statistics are true if you’re white. If you’re not, we rank near the bottom.”

— Minnesota Governor Tim Walz

But if you take a deeper look and peel it back, which this week has peeled back, all those statistics are true if you’re white. If you’re not, we rank near the bottom. And what this week has shown all of us is  those two things can’t operate at the same place. You cannot continue to say you’re a great place to live if your neighbor, because of the color of their skin, doesn’t have that same opportunity. That will man[ifest] itself in things that are the small hidden racisms. It will manifest itself in a child of color not getting the same opportunities or a black community not being able to acquire wealth through home ownership because of lending practices. And as we all saw last week, the ultimate end of that type of behavior is the ability to believe that you can murder a black man in public and it is an unusual thing that murder charges were brought days later.

So what I would like to say and, again, I want to thank everyone who participated in our ability to restore trust to our streets. It was incredibly complex. It was CONTINUE READING: Minnesota governor Tim Walz draws on his career as a public school teacher to prepare for reckoning after George Floyd's murder — PS connect

Imagine a Unites States … – radical eyes for equity

Imagine a Unites States … – radical eyes for equity

Imagine a Unites States …

People often either over-idealize or reject as a “bad” song the lyrics to John Lennon’s “Imagine,” but the concept serves a useful purpose.

Imagine a United States where the public and political leadership took seriously Colin Kaepernick’s peaceful protests against the racially inequitable policing and justice system in the US.

Imagine white America taking action because they listened, believed, and truly wanted an equitable and just country.

Imagine the many Black lives that would be with us today, alive and mostly anonymous in those lives.

Imagine no marches, no protests or signs emblazoned with “George Floyd” or “Black Lives Matter.”

But, instead, white America attacked Kaepernick, retreated into their comfortable white denial.

But, instead, white America today points accusatory fingers at “riots” and CONTINUE READING: Imagine a Unites States … – radical eyes for equity

glen brown: “Out of Control: Taking Liberties with Autonomy During a Pandemic” by Alfie Kohn

glen brown: “Out of Control: Taking Liberties with Autonomy During a Pandemic” by Alfie Kohn

“Out of Control: Taking Liberties with Autonomy During a Pandemic” by Alfie Kohn

“Warren Buffett famously commented that when the tide goes out, we can finally see who has been swimming naked. By the same token, when a pandemic arrives, we are confronted with a vivid display of just what kind of society we’ve really had all along:

“We see the implications of having lacked a robust public health system or national health care. We truly understand the impact of extreme economic inequality: Even many in the middle-class have been skating close to the edge, just a paycheck or two away from penury. And we get a really good look at our culture’s belief systems: the virtually theological devotion to the free market and abhorrence of the public sector, the tendency to worship individual ‘liberty’ and slight the common good.

“From a worldwide perspective, the United States is an outlier in its fixation on self-sufficiency. Our ethical code seems to begin and end with noninterference and personal choice. Our suspicion of collective enterprises was apparent to Tocqueville nearly two hundred years ago. Our popular entertainments celebrate heroes acting independently rather than interdependently.

“In contrast even with other Western societies, America is defined by an absence of commitment to shared values and to the value of what is shared. We are divided from each other, cast back upon ourselves to the point that it is profoundly unsettling to acknowledge our alienation. Yet CONTINUE READING: glen brown: “Out of Control: Taking Liberties with Autonomy During a Pandemic” by Alfie Kohn

George Floyd: Grief and anger and a cry for justice - Lily's Blackboard

George Floyd: Grief and anger and a cry for justice - Lily's Blackboard

George Floyd: Grief and anger and a cry for justice

We are watching the protests in Minneapolis and across the country and we are all in shock.  Again.  And yet again.

And as I say this, I know it seems right to be stunned and appalled.  We want to be shocked, but honestly, are we?

How can we be shocked at what is routine?  How can we pretend to be surprised at such callous cruelty by those charged with protecting and serving us when it has been an essential part of our American landscape since before our founding?

The senseless murder of George Floyd – a man whose life mattered – was the result of a country steeped in white supremacy.  The loss of his life and so many others is a cause for grief and anger but also a cry for justice.

Our merged affiliate, Education Minnesota, reached out to NEA and AFT and we will coordinate our response and work with local and national organizations to move justice forward in this angry and betrayed community.

We are proud to offer our hearts and hands to bring any assistance that can help us take action, hold those in power accountable and to begin to heal.  Unfortunately, we’ve been called on to do this work too many times before and this week proves that racial justice is still out of reach and our work continues.

But we are not deterred.  We are determined.  We stand with justice communities, unions, educators, parents, faith communities… we are not alone in this fight.  We applaud Education Minnesota for leading in their state, and for being racial justice leaders

within our union.  But we know that this is not only a local issue.  It’s not only a state issue.  It is a cancer on our nation, and we must stand together to find the cure. CONTINUE READING: George Floyd: Grief and anger and a cry for justice - Lily's Blackboard

While the Press Covers the Police Killing of a Black Man, Riots, and the Pandemic, Trump Quietly Vetoes Rule to Protect Defrauded Student Borrowers | janresseger

While the Press Covers the Police Killing of a Black Man, Riots, and the Pandemic, Trump Quietly Vetoes Rule to Protect Defrauded Student Borrowers | janresseger

While the Press Covers the Police Killing of a Black Man, Riots, and the Pandemic, Trump Quietly Vetoes Rule to Protect Defrauded Student Borrowers

On Saturday morning, the Washington Post‘s Matt Zapotosky and Isaac Stanley-Becker began their coverage of the state of our nation: “A global pandemic has now killed more than 100,000 Americans and left 40 million unemployed in its wake. Protests — some of them violent — have once again erupted in spots across the country over police killings of black Americans. President Trump, meanwhile, is waging a war against Twitter, attacking his political rivals, criticizing a voting practice he himself uses and suggesting that looters could be shot… Together, the events present a grim tableau of a nation in crisis — one seared by violence against its citizens, plagued by a deadly disease that remains uncontained and rattled by a devastating blow to its economy.”

Few reporters noticed something that President Trump did on Friday under the cover of all the news Zapotosky and Stanley-Becker summarize.  By comparison it seems like a small thing, but it will have a devastating effect on many of the same vulnerable people who have lost jobs due to the pandemic.  On Friday, President Trump vetoed a joint congressional resolution, passed by bipartisan majorities in both chambers of Congress, to overturn Betsy DeVos’s re-write of the “borrower defense to repayment” rule. Trump’s veto will make it much harder for students defrauded by unscrupulous for-profit colleges to force the federal government to forgive their federal college debts. It seems unlikely that Congress will have enough votes to override Trump’s veto.

The Obama era “borrower defense to repayment” rule made it easier for student borrowers with federal student loans to have their loans forgiven if they had been defrauded. However, an enormous backlog of claims has been building since DeVos took over the department and her staff slowed processing of students’ claims. Finally, last September, DeVos’s department rewrote a new version of the rule more friendly to the for-profit colleges and less protective of defrauded student borrowers burdened with enormous debt.

Anger and disagreement has swirled around the “borrower defense to repayment” rule. The Washington Post‘s Danielle Douglas-Gabriel reports that the President’s veto on Friday, CONTINUE READING: While the Press Covers the Police Killing of a Black Man, Riots, and the Pandemic, Trump Quietly Vetoes Rule to Protect Defrauded Student Borrowers | janresseger

Dear Young People who are my students | JD2718

Dear Young People who are my students | JD2718

Dear Young People who are my students

Dear Young People who are my students,

Sometimes life imitates art.

Late last night the Public Theater canceled a virtual event for Monday. “In this time of national trauma” they wrote in their email, “when the Covid crisis has so disproportionately impacted the Black community, when the injustices of our way of life have been made so clear, it just feels wrong for us to sail ahead… This is a time for mourning and reflection”

I had started to write your calendar. I stopped.

I thought about the letter from the Student Government, which I read yesterday:

“It is not enough to “not be racist”. We must ACTIVELY be anti-racist and be responsible citizens who listen and take actions as we fight for justice and equality. 

“We, the HSAS community, stand in solidarity with the Black Community. We urge all of you to do everything that you can to help the Black Lives Matter cause. We urge you all to commit to anti-racist practice and dismantle the white supremacy that blatantly exists in our society, anti-blackness in America and the police brutality that is continuously occurring in our country. 

Earlier today I reposted on Facebook the message of an alum from 2011:

 “To me, teaching is a matter of life and death. In black and brown communities, schools can honestly make or break your future. I do not take my position lightly—especially considering I am an Afro-Puerto Rican woman who chose to teach in the very same community I grew up in. I have many experiences in my own education where had I not had the proper support, i would probably not be where I am today. I know firsthand that the education system in this country does not actually care about our black and brown babies. So please. If you are an educator…—stop being silent on the issues pervading our communities.

And just moments ago another alum, class of 2009, gave me permission to share his words: CONTINUE READING: Dear Young People who are my students | JD2718

With A Brooklyn Accent: "White Privilege; Black Anger" A Powerful Essay by Pamela Knight author of "Teaching While Black"

With A Brooklyn Accent: "White Privilege; Black Anger" A Powerful Essay by Pamela Knight author of "Teaching While Black"

"White Privilege; Black Anger" A Powerful Essay by Pamela Knight author of "Teaching While Black"

Let me be clear on something. I would not loot my city, HOWEVER, when people are just as upset over people looting in response to another unarmed black man being killed for no reason, as they are that a LIFE, not a store front, not a police station, not a Target, but a living, breathing human being was TAKEN, you are devaluing black life. You might THINK you are for equality, but subconsciously, you do not think we are your equals. 

 

White privilege is finding sympathy for white murderers who shoot up churches and schools because they were bullied. If you did not post about how disgusted you were at Dylan Roof or the countless white men who decided to take innocent lives, some even CHILDREN, because he was troubled, but you are disgusted and outraged at people vandalizing their OWN—not your—City, you do not value black life as much as white life. 

 

Let me also break something else down: this rioting is so much deeper than simply destroying one’s community. It speaks to a myriad of things and deserves more analysis and reflection than a simple tweet or post of disdain. And unfortunately, many will refuse to do that much because that would require you to care about black life as much as white life, and so this will probably fall on many deaf ears: 

1. 
   Black people are angry. Rightfully angry. Just like the white male mass shooters are allowed to be angry, and the Amy Coopers of the world are allowed to be angry, for things that are INSIGNIFICANT: because they CONTINUE READING: With A Brooklyn Accent: "White Privilege; Black Anger" A Powerful Essay by Pamela Knight author of "Teaching While Black"

A Justice Letter to Educators of Color and Conscience | The Jose Vilson

A Justice Letter to Educators of Color and Conscience | The Jose Vilson

A JUSTICE LETTER TO EDUCATORS OF COLOR AND CONSCIENCE

This one is dedicated specifically to my educators of color and conscience,

When I became a teacher, I inherited a tradition of Black teaching that spans this country’s history since time immemorial. Similar to Black people in any official government role, Black teaching came with the complications of the job. From the standards and curriculum to the policy mandates handed down to us from administrators from every government level. Like so many of those roles, we are truly agents of the state working at the behest of the tax-funding apparatus. Unlike the other professions, Black teaching has just enough of a wedge for us to do so subversively and, in many instances, outwardly activist.

Teaching with justice in mind doesn’t necessarily contradict the job itself, unlike, say, law enforcement.

Once I learned what it meant to teach through my identity at my center, not simply as an aside, I noted the difference in my expressions of said teacher. I, like many of you, found elements of my pedagogy and curriculum that needed remaking and, where possible, complete abandonment. Scripted lessons never made it past my classroom bulletin board. Math problems that didn’t make sense to my students became solutions steeped in the neighborhoods and resources they knew. I learned when I needed to put my foot down as an authority and when to teach kids how to teach themselves.

When they graduated, I would tell them that I taught them to teach themselves because I didn’t know who would oversee their learning next. The stakes feel so damn high.

Growing up on the Lower East Side, I knew the sound of gunshots at night the way my classmates in CONTINUE READING: A Justice Letter to Educators of Color and Conscience | The Jose Vilson